Buenos Aires

An excited crew were watching Fram dock in Buenos Aires around noon. As soon as the ship was cleared we ran across the gangway to feel land under our feet. And also to spend the money that has been burning in our pocket for a long while now.

To open the gangway we had both electricians Ivar and Ørjan present, and from the reception Marivic, Marilyn, Line and Chief Purser Jesper. This to make sure everything was in order since the gangway has not been in use for 21 days.

Tonight the crew is going out for dinner in the city, to have a delicious Argentinian steak

Position now at 20:00 Passenger Terminal, Basin 3 and we will stay here until 2nd November 17:00.

Land! We can see land!

This morning we woke up to longed for sight, Land. Even though we seafarers love the ocean, its was nice to finally see land again after 20 days at sea. Having a bunkering boat coming up to us outside Montevideo, we also got to see a few new faces. Now we have been just a crew of 54 so for sure we are all looking forward

to welcome passengers and new crew embarking in Buenos Aires.

Maybe the crew will be glad to get away from the photographer sticking the camera in their nose when they are trying to work. Like here when nurse Cecilia is organizing the hospital. She keeps everything in order and must definitely be the most organized person on the ship.

Ass. Pastryman Michael and Chief Baker Vidal have the never-ending job baking for us. Looks like they are having fun while doing this. And we are happy to eat their yummy treats.

Position tonight at 23:00 S35'01'' W56' 04'' as the pilot is arriving to take us to Buenos Aires.

Birthdays & Bingo

Today the Able Bodys have been preparing the ship for arrival Buenos Aires on Saturday. The entire ship has been washed. On the picture you see William washing deck 7, at least you can see his nose and mouth as he is covering up to avoid the sun.




We have been celebrating Jimmy, Jael, Mulituba and Heminigildo's birthdays. Housekeeping and reception made some nice decorations in the bar on deck 7 to set the mood. And the cooks made pizza and cakes.

The welfare also arranged Bingo. So we can say they had a worthy celebration. Ramon was a excellent bingo host and the lucky winners were Rande and Mario as always.


Position tonight at 23:20 S34'51'' W54'03''

Olympic Games Final

Today was another grey day and it is starting to get colder outside. Ship Doctor Eduardo decided to spend his break inside in the gym. The cooks have been serving us lot of delicious meals, having barbeque outside every other day. So the rest of the crew should probable follow the doctors good example.

Housekeeper Marissa and Chief Purser Jesper rather wanted to watch a movie. Those of you who been on the Drake Passage in bad weather might recognize their popcorn bag. (travel sickness bag)

Motorman Paul and First Engineer Jonny had to change the safety valve for the exhaust boiler. Jonny thought this was a big event that deserved to be on the blog, therefore he called the photographer to climb down into the chimney.

Last night was the big final of Fram Olympic Games 2009. The competion was to make the longest line out of the clothes and whatever else the participants were wearing. Team "Leftovers" sacrificed everything to win this game. So we decided to spare our readers for this picture. Tonight all the winners from the competitions we have had onbord this cruise got their well deserved prizes.

Position tonight at 23:15 S32'28'' W50'55''

Day 2 Fram Olympic Games

Last night we had the second round in our Fram Olympic Games. First the teams had to eat apples, hanging down in a string from the roof. Each team had two participants cooperating as a couple, so you can imaging how they were eating the apples, with only using the face (no hands allowed). Hotel Manager Else Kristine and Chief Purser Jesper from team "leftovers" won.

Then it was the muimies time to show up. The teams had to wrap one of the members in toiletpapers. We had problem with the camera yesterday, so Marylin in the white costume was wraped again today. The wrapers on the picture are Jael, Marivic and Line. There were two winning team in this competition.

Next game the teams had to throw a ballon with water to each other, and of course, if the ballon broke, the team was out of the competition. Winner was the Restaurant team.

And after a thrilling competition in sack race with 3 crew members inside, Deck team won. Some of the teams had a big challange to stand up on their feet - and jump without falling.

Every day we call the officers on the bridge to get the position. Chief Officer Espen and Navigation Officer Clyde, gave us at 18:05 the following position; S29'05'' W46'52''

Olympic games

The first round of Fram Olympic games are over. The first game the participants had to eat a enormous hamburger. Able Body Bong managed to eat almost the hole burger in only 5 minutes. We were all very impressed. Next game was tresurehunting for coins in a bowl with flour using only their mouth, dinning room's Marvin won this.

Then it was time for the newspaperdance. Those who have seen the crewshow know we have a lot of great dancers here on Fram, so we had 4 winners in this competion. On the picture you can see a strong Hotel Manager, standing on one foot, lifting Chief Engineer Tormod.

4th game all the girls had to show what they where good for with a pen tied around their waiste shooting the pen into a bottle. Team ''Leftovers'' with the Hotel Manager was superior to the others in this.

Last competion was relay race, which the Engine won and they are now leading the Fram Olympics. But tonight the other teams are ready to try beating the Engine team

Position today at 18:15 S26'27,2'' W43'51,8''

Today our 3 Engineer Laxima, have been busy doing some maintenance work in the engine. He is very concentrated on the job he is doing, and when our blog photographer Line arrives, he put on a big smile for her :-)

Our Deck Fitter Alfel have today repaired the floor outside on of the bathrooms in a passenger cabin. As you see, Alfel also like to smile to our photographer.

Tonight will be the start of Fram Olympic Games, and we are very excited for what will happend. Hopefully we can show you some pictures tomorrow.

Position at 19:05 S23' 32'' W40' 43,6''

This morning it was grey outside. But we can't do anything about the weather, other than complaining.... and today it was no reason for that either, suddenly the sun was shining so beautifully. Our Chief Engineer Tormod is looking at the beautiful sunset.

It is amazing how nice weather we have had on this journey from New York. We have sailed for 15 days now, and next Sunday, November 1st, we will for sure be in Buenos Aires :-)

Today some of the crew have started waxing the floors in crew area. Our Hotel Manager Else Kristine, was outside her office when they started, and she is not allowed to go in there yet. So right now she is sitting, making comments, in the reception. But she is happy - later she will be proud of the shining floor outside her office. As you can see on the picture, Richardson & Rodaniel are very accurate when doing this job.


Waxing floors??? Chef Jimmy wanted to try to wax his legs, and Hotel Manager were happy to help him.

Position today at 18:00 is S19' 35'' W38' 00''

Our amazing laundryman Herminigildo have had many curtains to wash the last days as ALL curtains in ALL cabins have been taken down and washed. For some odd reason he is still smiling - as allways :-) The Fram has got new industrial washing maschines and is now self serviced when it comes to doing laundry so if you need laundry done during your voyage; Hermie will do it for you!

Last night we had the finals in our dart competition. Housekeeper Marissa and Head Waiter Allan won after many tough rounds of throwing the darts. Actually it is not that easy to do on a moving vessel at sea.

Todays position at 18:01lt was S11'07.7'' W035'24.6''

Changing course

Our electricans Ørjan and Ivar have a lot of maintenance work on this crossing. Here you can see them working with the engine on our mob boat. After having a rough time in the sun (sunburned), they where happy to be hiding inside.

They asked us to put a picture of them on the blog so they can send their greetings to their friends, family and passengers who has been traveling with us earlier.

After work yesterday the crew welfare arranged a Pushball competition. The enthusiasm where on a high level from the first match. On this picture you can see Line and the chef Jimmy winning over Janette and Aurea.

The winner of the competion was assistant chef Eduardo and Ivar after a very exciting final.

Today has been a busy day for the bridge. For 4 days we have been on the same course and at 12.28 this afternoon we changed to the new course, which now are 161 degrees.
Our position at 17:00 was S 5' 49'' W 34' 47''

Equator line

Early this morning, at 05:50 a.m., we crossed the Equator line. We crossed it at W028' 24,4"

Normally the ships doing the crossing, get a visit of King Neptun, as also entered MV Fram.

Suddenly we got a message over the PA system; King Neptun has arrived, meet outside on deck 7 - now!

It is a special happening to cross the equator line with a ship - to be a real Seaman - you have to be baptized :-)

6 crew onboard crossed the equator for the first time, and they had to be baptized according to Netptuns hard rules. They where threated with Neptuns spezialities, which are not like the splended food we normally get.

We congratulate and welcome the new Seamen Marilyn, Ramon, Mobanga, Angela, Gawas, Eduardo and Malituba in our big family.

"Working 9 to 5....."

As you already know we have no passenger onboard at the moment.
But we have a lot of work to do. Our Engine Fitter Terje have know checked the aircondition system in all cabins. Terje is a hard working man that likes to take his coffeebreaks outside on sun deck:-) If you follow our blog, we will later show you a picture of his nice tan.

Jennifer, Janette, Erman, Rodaniel, Marissa and Edward have been busy cleaning cabins. All together we have 177 passenger and crew cabin. So you can imagine what they are thinking about when they go to sleep (counting mirrors, pillows, toiletbrushes and so on)
We have to mention that they have more helpers, but we where busy working another place.

Our position today is N2' and W39' 47"
Tomorrow we have a big happening here:-)

We are now repositioning from New York to Buenos Aires. 23 days at sea without passengers and with now sight of land anywhere. It feels like we are all alone in this big world, and from the bridge they report that they have hardly seen any other ships.

The weather has been perfect so far. Warm winds and sunny days are nice for the pale-faced Scandinavians onboard BUT we do other things than tanning as well. Actually it is hard work from early morning as the whole vessel is being thoroughly cleaned and all technical installations are being checked for Fram to be in "ship shape" when we start our 3rd Antarctic season from Buenos Aires on November 2nd.

While some of the crew loves the sun others tend to stay inside and hide but when the sun sets activities on deck increase. Tonight we had Air Gun Competition. The picture shows Marivic - who did not hit the target once :-) Obviously Ola, our enthusiastic Safety Officer, wasn´t much of a teacher!

At 17:43 today we had sailed a total of 2873 Nautical miles from New York and our position is N5' 37" and W42' 15" Outside temperature is 29C

Finally the last hour of this cruise has come! We are already alongside of Manhattan and have entered the Hudson river ... so after all the remote wilderness of Greenland and the vast landscapes of Newfoundland and Labrador we are now going to explore one of the most famous, geatest and interesting metropol-cities of the whole world!

The northern season comes to an end here - we will start with new passengers for Antarctica in a couple of weeks - see you than!

Today we made the last stop during our voyage, as we reached Gloucester.

The weather was just perfect - warm and sunny - to enjoy the excursion to Boston or stroll around in the little seaport. Most of us visited Hammond Castle, a mediavel building erected by an american millionaire - who gathered his wealth by inventing the latest technology ...

And than Boston - a town full of US-history, combining old buildings and all this new steel-glass-constructions growing into the sky. A very interesting day for all of us.

A great day in Halifax! We already arrived the last evening and had the possibitity to stroll along the harbourfront and take part in the birthday-celebrations for Mr. Keith, a famous (and long passed away ...) brewer. Today most of our passengers enjoyed a very nice bus-excursion to Peggys Cove, a nice little fishing-village. The guides provided us with a lot of informations and the landscape we passed through was just beautyful with the autumn colours. As some other cruise-ships also visited Halifax the very same day - amongst them the "Explorer of the Seas" and the "Queen Mary 2" with thousands of passengers - it got a little bit crowded in Peggys Cove during the day.

Returning to the harbour most guests were quite happy to board the cosy little Fram instead of the Giants just next to her ...

Today we went into the heart of the Cape Breton Island - through some narrow passages we sailed to the little town of Baddeck and it felt a little bit like cruising on some inland-lakes as we had no waves and no view of the open sea at all. Baddeck turned out to be very different from the other sofar visited settlements in Canada: No small and isolated fishervillage with just a few houses on rocky cliffs, but instead a busy little town with a lot of souvenir- and handycraftstores as well as beautyful houses at the seafront. It is a nice place that already attracted summer-residents 100 years ago. The most famous one was the known inventor Alexander Graham Bell. The very interesting museum not only tells about his work related to the telephone, but also about his astonishing experiments in the era of early aviation. We could also see the remains of the once fastest speedboat of the world - Bells strange hydrofoil HD-4.

Back to Newfoundland again.

The Gros Morne National Park really offers some scenic coastlines and breathtaking mountainvalleys - but today longlasting rainfalls kept the enthusiasm about it a little bit low. We went to the famous Tablelands, were old rocks from the earths mantle and long gone ocean floors are lying on the surface. They are full of metals and not very fertile, so one could easily see the difference in vegetation.

In the interesting visitors centre we learned more about the area and its special geology. In addition we had good time to stroll through the nice village of Woody Point or hike into the nearby forests - beautyful coloured in green, yellow and red ...

We went north again - just a little bit - and made our landfall at the coast of Labrador. It offered us a scenic landscape with autumn-coloured woods, wild salmon-rivers and rough seashores. Just a handful of small settlements is spred along thise remote coastline.

The little village of Red Bay with app. 260 inhabitants had 3 museums informing about the basque whaling-era, when hundreds of men went over here each year to hunt for the whales in this waters. This period is long gone, and so we could enjoy a lot of whale-sightings today.

After a calm 2-day-crossing with a lot of lectures we today reached land again.

It was first a little bit rainy and foggy when we entered the little bay of St. Anthony through a very narrow entrance. But as the time went on it turned out to became a nice day with some sunshine as well and unbelievable warm temperatures - TShirt-weather again after all this greenlandic snowstorms ...

And as one of the highlights of the trip we were today able to visit L`Anse aux Meadows, the famous place where Helge Ingstad and his wife had found the remains of a viking settlement in the 60s and so proofed that Leif Erikson really made his way to "Vinland". Onboard the Fram we had their daughter Benedicte who was enthusiastic greeted by all the people working at the museum or in the reconstructed viking houses nearby - for as a teenager she had accompanied their parents for the excavations.